There's Ghosts in Arcadia
by polar-or-die
Summary: Jim's mom, Barbara Lake, has built a new scientific experiment: a portal to the Ghost Zone. But no matter what she does, it doesn't work, and she leaves town to find new supplies. In her absence, Jim and his friend Toby go to check it out… and accidentally trigger something very dangerous.
1. Chapter 1: Shouldn't Have Touched That

Jim and Toby crept down the stairs of Jim's basement. The space was cramped, with a single tiny window just touching the ceiling, and it was filled to the brim with scientific equipment. Work tables filled with blueprints, plans pinned to every available surface, beakers everywhere. Computer parts were strewn across tables, and large machines that the kids could only guess what they were for stood in the larger corners. Everything seemed to make noise, but quietly - a beeping here, a puff of pressure exchange there, the bubbling of a beaker somewhere. On the far side of the room, a gaping hole lined with blinking electronics was carved into the wall.

"We shouldn't even be here," murmured Toby as they reached the floor of the basement. "Your mom always said to stay out of here…"

"But she also wants me to get engaged with her research," said Jim. "Listen, I'm just gonna look at what's inside that thing."

"The Ghost Portal, right? What does it do, again? Teleports ghosts?"

"No," Jim said with a huff. He pointed at the hole on the far wall. It was almost built like a tunnel, but it was too shallow to lead anywhere. "This Ghost Portal is supposed to open a hole into another dimension, when it's activated. A dimension where there's ghosts, and stuff. Mom's been trying to build this thing forever, ever since my dad disappeared… And now it's finally here, Toby. What if it really works?"

"Well…" Toby rested his hand on his best friend's shoulder. "I think we'll just have to find ourselves some ghosts, Jimbo."

"Okay… You ready, Tobes?"

Toby jumped. "You mean you want me to actually… go in there? Right now? Are you serious?"

"You don't have to go if you don't want to. I'm just gonna put on a hazmat jumpsuit thing and look at what's going on inside anyway. I'm not gonna, you know, fire up the thing and jump into a dimension I don't even know is real - or safe to breathe in. Okay, Toby?" Jim bent under a table and fumbled around. "Aha!" he shouted, dragging a giant box out from underneath. It had a bunch of radioactive warnings plastered to the outside. "I knew the backups would be under here." He fiddled with the latch, which was old and a little broken.

"Backup what?" asked Toby, nervously.

"Jumpsuits!" Jim cracked the container open triumphantly and pulled out one of the floppy outfits. It was teal, just like the ones his mom wore. Probably just a backup for her… Jim wondered if one of them would fit.

"Oh." Toby glanced back at the stairs. "How long did you say your mom would be out, again?"

"Relax, she's gone for at least an hour or two. She takes forever on these trips… It's not like we live super close to other towns that supply industrial-grade-whatever-the-heck. Come on, at least help me get into this suit, if you're not coming with."

A few minutes later, after lots of grunting and tugging, the suit was on. "Okay," said Jim. "I have no idea how radioactive the portal actually is, which is why the jumpsuit, obviously."

"You mean you could get radiation poisoning?" Toby grabbed at Jim's elbow. "Why are you doing this, again?"

"Because…" Jim thought for a minute. "Because I want it to work. Mom's been after this for ages, ever since dad, and… she's so close. I'm worried that she's been looking too close and just missed something easy to fix, just outside her focus. Instead of her using the wrong type of weird glowing fluid… maybe a wire's loose? Plus," Jim paused for half a beat, "I want to see if it works. I want to know… if we can really get there, to the ghost dimension. Is it even possible? There's only one way to find out."

"But you're not going to turn it on, right?"

"No, I just want to take a look inside. Promise." Jim looked his short friend in the eyes and nodded. "Well. Here goes…"

Jim stepped inside the portal. He looked around, at everything blinking, at the switches turned on and off, at the wiring that was haphazardly stuck in place. Nothing seemed obviously broken, though… "Hm," said Jim. "It doesn't look like there's anything that obvious to help out with. No wires exposed - at least not more exposed than any others, I guess - and there's not a simple 'on' switch…" He touched the wall, trying to think of something that could help his mom.

"Dude, if there's nothing super broken or whatever, just get out of there. Why are you still standing in that radiation filled tube of death? Literally, it's a tube of death. Oh my god, Jim, what are you doing?"

Jim had pried open a panel that seemed a bit looser than the others and was looking at its contents. "I'm… staring at wires," he answered. "Just… more wires. Huh." He shrugged. Guess there wasn't anything here that was such an easy fix after all. "Alright, I'm coming out, now, Tobes, so you can chill."

"Great! Then we can never think about going into an experimental portal to the land of the undead unsupervised ever again! We can even never come into this basement ever again! This place creeps me out."

"Aw, it isn't so bad down here," said Jim, picking up the panel he loosened. He held it up, and lined up the sides to click it back in place. "It might be kind of cramped, but –" he was cut off the instant he slid the panel into place. Abruptly a gigantic, low, rumbling came from the far end of the portal. It was a sound so deep Jim might have thought it was inside his head, except he felt it in his bones, too, and suddenly a glowing green light started flowing from everywhere, from nowhere, and from somewhere inside him all at once. "UHHHHH TOBES?" he yelled, unsure of if his friend could even hear him. The rumbling sound was getting louder.

"JIM? WHAT'S HAPPENING?" screamed Toby, but his voice fell into the rumbling, unheard. Terrified, he stood there as a blinding green light filled the room, and the only thing he could think to do was to cover his eyes.

Jim saw so much, even though he knew he wasn't really seeing anything. So many shades of vibrant green filled his vision, even with his eyes closed. Light pierced not only his eyelids, but his whole body, and he could feel it reach his bones, his heart, his lungs. The portal finished powering up, and began to actually open to the ghost dimension, and suddenly there was an ear-piercing scream. It shattered everything Jim could feel, and as the doorway opened, it felt like his skin was melting off. An intense, painful tingling that he could only guess was electricity traveled up his hand, still resting on the panel somehow, and it set his whole body on fire. And then, in an instant, he didn't feel anything anymore.

"OH MY GOD JIM THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS AFRAID OF HAPPENING YOU IDIOT!" screamed Toby, eyes full of tears. He was scared. The air rang with both an impossibly deep roar and a piercing wail that Toby worried would shatter his eardrums forever. What if Jim died in there? Frantically, he looked around for a power switch, a plug, anything. Eventually, he locked onto an overloaded power outlet: there was a sign attached that labeled it as where the portal was plugged in. How could all this be powered by a single power outlet? Choosing not to dwell on it, Toby pulled the whole power strip out from the wall. The wailing calmed to a scream, then a yell, then faded away, and the light started to grow more bearable. The low rumbling dwindled into a hum, and the sound of everything powering down gave way to silence.

Then there was the sound of Jim hitting the floor.


	2. Chapter 2: Give Jim a Hand, Everyone

Toby ran over to the edge of the portal, getting as close to it as he dared. Everything was quiet, and Jim wasn't saying anything, and there was some kind of steam floating around inside the portal, so he couldn't see inside. Or was it smoke? A mist or fog? Not important, Toby reminded himself.

"Jim?" croaked Toby. "You in there, buddy?" A cough rang out through the silence, and Toby sighed. Jim was alive. "Dude, you really scared me! Are you okay?"

"I.." Jim tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't move. Propping himself up on his elbows, he tried to see through the fog that surrounded him. The air tasted strange - a kind of metallic that was unfamiliar to him. "I don't know…" He blinked hard, but he couldn't focus on anything. It was like his eyes were trying to see past the floor… and he couldn't tell if there was something there. It almost seemed like there was. He could feel the floor beneath his hands, but the surface looked less than solid, shifting constantly, almost giving away to something else. A swath of colors he couldn't describe washed over everything, and he felt his whole body buzz like his skin was made of bees. Echoes of something unknown called far away in the back of his head. He tried to push it all away and focused on the immediately important problems he had to deal with. "Toby… what happened?"

"I don't know, man! You tell me! You're the one who was in there!" Toby paced back and forth at the gaping entrance of the portal. "How, uh, how do you feel?" He tugged nervously on an untucked part of his shirt. He hated the idea of being an accomplice to his friend getting hurt, but tried not to focus on the guilt.

"I don't know… I can't feel.. Anything… but like. I can also feel my whole body tingling? Where are you? I think my muscles need help remembering how to move." He grunted as he tried to sit up, but his arms strained against him. It was like all the energy was sucked out of him. If he was electrocuted - which he hated to consider, but it was _very _possible - his nerves could have been damaged or something. His mom was a doctor, but he didn't know much about medical procedures himself. He knew that he'd be unable to take care of his own wounds, if there were any. Jim still couldn't quite feel his arms and legs, so it was hard to tell.

"Uhh… hmmm… errr…" Toby hemmed and hawed about entering the portal. "You're sure it's safe in there?"

"Of course not, Toby, that's why I'm asking you to help me out of here!" The fog-smoke was clearing, but Jim's vision wasn't. Everything still ebbed and flowed about haphazardly. "I've heard that people in accidents like this can get disoriented easily, and I am already extremely disoriented." He tried to pound the ground with his right fist to emphasise his own frustration, but his hand didn't make contact with anything. Suddenly his whole arm was swinging down below him, which didn't make sense at all. The floor was right there, and his hand was acting like it wasn't even there. It was as if he were lying down on the edge of a cliff and his arm was just dangling off the side. Worriedly, he pulled his arm back up and decided not to say anything. Clearly, this accident was making him crazy.

"Okay. I'm coming in for you, Jimbo. Hold tight." Toby stepped carefully into the chamber, which was dark and foreboding now that it had no power running to it. The air inside was mostly clear, but the lack of light made it hard to see where Jim was on the floor. As he tiptoed along, he wondered what this accident would do to Jim in the long run. What exactly happened inside? He'd have to ask Jim that when they were both more collected. Suddenly his toe tapped something solid, but soft. "Jim!"

"Watch it, Tobes!" snapped Jim. He took a deep breath. "I'm worried you'll step on me. I need help up, too. Everything's… weird." Toby nodded and reached out his hand for Jim to grab. Nervously, Jim held up his right hand, watching it carefully as it rose up to meet Toby's.

"Dude, were you also zapped by a slow motion ray in there?" Toby moved forward and grabbed onto Jim's hand, giving it a bit of a squeeze. "Listen, everything's going to be okay. I know you don't want to get in trouble, but… if things are really that bad, your mom _is _a doctor. We can ask her for help."

Jim grimaced as he pulled on Toby's arm, bringing himself upward. "I know, but I don't like that idea. Let's take stock of everything first. Okay, I'm standing, mostly. Do I uh, do I look okay?" He glanced down at himself, still using Toby as support. Everything was still fuzzy and nothing was sitting still.

Toby looked him up and down, craning his head back a bit. Resting his gaze on Jim's head, he said, "You know, I wasn't going to say anything, but -"

"What? Is it bad? Is my face melting off or something?" Jim started sweating nervously. What could he do about something like that?

"Nothing like that, but... your hair. It's like, gone all white. I have no idea what's up with that, but it's probably not a good sign." Toby paused for a minute, looking at Jim's feet. "And this is a weird follow-up question, but what color was that jumpsuit again?"

"It was teal," Jim said. "I mean, it _is _teal. I mean.. Wait, why are you asking that?" He looked down at himself again, and this time really paid attention to what he was seeing. Toby was right - the jumpsuit wasn't teal anymore. It was a pinkish color, almost peach. "What the heck?"

"Okay, that's weird, but don't worry, we'll figure it out later. We still have to walk out of this stupid portal, remember?" Jim nodded, and they both turned towards the entrance. They took a few steps, slowly and carefully, waiting between for Jim to catch his breath. Toby listened for the sound of Mrs. Lake's rumbly van returning home, but so far it seemed like she was still out.

Jim took a deep breath, and as he let it out, suddenly Toby's support was gone, and he was falling over. He braced himself with his forearms and when he landed on the ground with a _whump_, he looked back at Toby. "What the heck? Why did you let go of me?"

Toby stared at Jim with a terrified expression, and color was draining out of his face. "I… I didn't let go…" Toby just kept looking at the arm he'd been holding onto. Or, that is… where Jim's right arm should have been.

Jim looked down at his right arm. He lifted it up, but for some reason, he couldn't see anything there. Well, his bicep was still there, attached to his shoulder, but the rest of his arm past his elbow faded into nothing. It disappeared into the air in a gradient, almost, like someone had started to erase his forearm from a comic book but didn't finish. "WHERE. IS. MY ARM?" Jim hollered. "I don't - what th- what is going on? Toby?" He worriedly whipped his head back to look his friend in the face.

Toby's expression was somber, and he looked back at Jim with a seriousness that he hadn't seen before. "I," Toby paused. "I don't know what's going on, I know less than you probably do, Jim. But let's get you up to your room, at least. Then we can evaluate everything without worrying about your mom barging in on us. I can uh, say that you're in your room 'cause you have a stomach ache from... food poisoning, or something. Then we can dye your hair back." Toby bent down and helped Jim up again, this time holding him by the waist. His missing arm would not be so easy to hide. "Good news is that since I just pulled the power plug for the thing, I don't think the portal's broken. So if we can figure out whatever's up with _you_, we should get out of this unscathed, for the most part."

"Unscathed," mumbled Jim, staring at his missing right hand. "It doesn't hurt, which is weird. And it feels like I can move my fingers. But where are they?" He looked back at Toby. This was too much. Everything was still swimming around him, and he couldn't tell where one color stopped and another started. Every shape he could see in front of him looked like it was filled with static, and it buzzed to the beat of his own skin. "We should probably get going. We don't want to get caught, and I'm not sure how much energy I have. We shouldn't waste it." Toby nodded, and they headed for the stairs.

Twenty minutes later, they were in Jim's room, both of them out of breath from the trek up the stairs. It was never so hard to go up two flights of stairs like that for Jim, and it worried him. He felt like he couldn't catch his breath, and the tingling in his nerves was getting worse. He leaned against his desk. "Toby," he said between heaves of air, "thanks for the help… Sorry… that you were…. Dragged into this. I didn't mean to..." Toby waved him off.

"What are best friends for?" Toby said with a shrug. "Now, how are you feeling?"

"Worse," Jim panted. "I don't -" Suddenly a pain filled Jim's head and the floor tilted underneath him. He watched the ground come up to meet his face, but he couldn't react fast enough to brace himself. He landed with a _smack_, and everything went black.

"JIM!" yelled Toby, stepping forward to wake him up, but a blindingly bright flash filled the room. He covered his eyes, and when he opened them again, he examined Jim on the floor. Everything seemed different after the flash - Toby propped Jim's face up in his lap, and saw that Jim's hair had changed back to black. His right hand was where it should be, and the jumpsuit was teal once again. It was like none of the weird stuff even happened. What could this mean?

Before he had time to dwell on that question, Toby heard Mrs. Lake in the driveway. Frantically, Toby dragged Jim across the floor and wrestled his unconscious body into bed. He tucked Jim in, and took some school papers out of Jim's backpack and spread them out on both the bed in front of Jim and on the floor. _We were doing homework together,_ thought Toby. _And then he started feeling sick_.

The lock in the front door downstairs turned with a jostle of keys. "Jim?" called Mrs. Lake. Toby came out of the room and hopped down the stairs.

"Hi, Mrs. Lake!" he said with forced positivity. "Welcome back!"

"Hi, Toby," said Mrs. Lake, in that motherly way. She pulled her pink-tinted goggles off of her eyes and rested them on her forehead. She set her bags down and took off her long, white coat. "Where's Jim? Up in his room?"

"Uh, yeah," said Toby, heart pounding. He fiddled with his shirt as he thought of what to say. "We were working together on homework, and - and suddenly Jim said he didn't feel so good."

"Oh no! Is he alright?" Mrs. Lake rushed to the stairs, caught up in worry for her son. Toby followed her up the stairs.

"Yeah, uh, he's in bed right now. I think he got most of it out of his system." He paused for a second. "He's sleeping it off now. Must have been a case of food poisoning or something..." Toby could feel the sweat coming through his shirt.

"Oh, poor Jim," said Mrs. Lake, opening the door to Jim's room. Across the room, there he was: asleep in bed, homework strewn about, everything peaceful. "He was going to make such a fancy dinner tonight… Now he'll probably need some chicken soup. Not that I'm very good at cooking!" Mrs. Lake chuckled and headed back for the stairs.

"Well," piped up Toby, "maybe I could stay the night and help? Or, at least, stay for dinner. I know he's going to be fine, but…" he looked back at Jim's door, which they'd left slightly ajar.

"You want to keep an eye on him, be my guest," said Mrs. Lake. "And when it comes to food, I could use all the help I can get! Maybe this time we'll make something edible." She headed off to the kitchen, presumably to check for ingredients.

Toby worried about what would happen when Jim woke up. Possibly nothing. But it could also possibly be _not _nothing, and Toby couldn't even begin to guess what _not nothing_ would entail. "I'm going back upstairs to check on him, " Toby called, and he climbed the stairs once again.

When he got into Jim's room, he went to Jim's desk and opened his laptop. He pulled up the web browser and typed into the search bar a question that had been burning in his mind this whole time.

"What is the ghost zone?"


End file.
